Dreams – Part 4
January 7, 2008
Dear Friends,
Our last question in our survey was “If you believe God communicates with us today via dreams, how would you distinguish between a dream from God versus an ordinary dream?” One respondent wrote “This is the rub. How can one tell? Many from other religions are utterly convinced, but their dreams clearly contradict Bible truth.” This is actually where this TFTW started for me. I read the book Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer. The book is a well-researched, well-written book about Mormonism; in particular, a murder that arose from a few Mormon men receiving visions. In these visions, a man was told to kill his brother’s wife and their little baby.
I firmly believe that God is at work in individual lives today. He still answers prayer. He still performs miracles. He still helps us in ways we will not fully comprehend until Christ returns. I believe we will look back in awe at all God did and laugh at what we assumed was under our control and we did by our own strength. Believing this, the idea of spurious dreams and visions like the one mentioned above gives me pause.
Nevertheless, when I started thinking about these Mormon men and their murderous visions, I thought of Bible characters such as Samuel. It was not easy for them to know that what was happening was from Yahweh. God came to Samuel and spoke to him. What is so surprising to me is that God sounded so ordinary. If you recall the story, young Samuel thought it was the High Priest Eli speaking to him. God seems to have been waiting for Samuel to recognize Him. God didn’t continue his message until Samuel recognized him and said “Speak; for thy servant heareth.” (1 Sam. 3:10)
If God did come to us, would we know and how would we know? How would we know we were not delusional like these Mormon killers? Here is the breakdown of our responses of how we would know:
- 11% said the dream would be very vivid
- 1% said they thought all dreams were from God
- 30% said they would have a special feeling that this was a Divine dream
- 10% said they would know by the subject of the dream
- 29% said it was something other than the above. The vast majority of these write-in responses was “I don’t know” or something to that effect.
Some other interesting suggestions were:
- It would be doubled, sheaves and stars, butler and baker.
- It would come true in a short space of time.
- I’m sure that God would help me know the difference.
- I don’t think you would really know.
Some of our survey respondents said you would just know. Here are a few of their comments.
- If God chose to communicate with me by dreams, I am sure there would be no doubt it was from Him.
- When the creator of his people speaks to you through a dream, there is no doubt who the dream was from.
To me this issue of dreams shows clearly the spectrum of thought within the community of believers regarding God’s involvement in personal affairs. One the one end of the spectrum you have those who are convinced that God is not involved in human affairs except in the “big picture” things. God might be involved in shaping EU policy toward Israel, but not in individual lives. On the other end of the spectrum, you have those who see God active in the details of their lives. Admittedly, I tend toward the latter.
Several people made comments which to me address this problem. Let’s give an example of something not including dreams. Let’s say you pray for someone to get well and they do. Are you comfortable saying that God healed them? I think most believers would. Would you be comfortable saying it was a miracle? Less people would. Would you be comfortable saying that in no way, shape or form did God heal that person? Perhaps some people would. This begs the question – is there a “safe” position? If God didn’t heal them but it was through natural means that God set in motion with creation and we call it is miracle, are we sinner more or less than if God did heal them and we attribute it to something other than Him such as doctors, diet, luck, etc.? You could make an argument that the latter is the so-called “unforgivable sin” (i.e. attributing God’s power to something other than God – see Matt. 12).
As we move this same discussion over to dreams, some people wrote in rather vehemently saying that if you think you are getting dreams from God, you are an apostate and don’t have the Truth. They are absolutely convinced God does not work in this way any more. Other people wrote in how profoundly dreams have influenced them for good and how equally convinced God did work through dreams. Who is right and who is wrong?
One of the most profound things I learned through this survey really didn’t have anything to do with dreams. What I learned is why we don’t talk about things like this. A (very) few people wrote in to tell me that just opening the discussion and survey about dreams was an abomination and proceeded to tell me just what a low-life I was. I don’t mention this to get sympathy. I’m a big boy (a really big boy if you know me personally – about 260 pounds worth) and can take the heat. They are entitled to their opinion even if they don’t think you and I should be entitled to our own opinion. The key is that we do need to have these conversations even in the face of adversity. I know that this conversation has sparked more than a few people to open their Bibles and do some more study on dreams. How can that be bad? How can talking about something be bad in which the vast majority of our survey respondents felt was either a fact or possible? If anything this exercise proved to me that more discussion is required, not less, but be aware that you will have to wear a flak jacket to do so openly.
Your thoughts and comments were greatly appreciated on the survey regardless of what side of the dreams issue you are on. I am sorry I was unable to publish them all. They were also fascinating and stimulating. Thank you. I am very comfortable with leaving the dreams issue an open issue in which we each need to apply ourselves in prayer, study and contemplation. I again encourage you to share your further thoughts and comments on the TFTW blog.
Have a great week,
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